Key Points and Summary on Su-34 Attack – Ukrainian drones have successfully struck another Russian airbase deep inside its territory, hitting at least four Su-34 fighter-bombers at the Marinovka aerodrome in the Volgograd Oblast on June 27.
-According to Ukraine’s General Staff, the joint operation by the SBU and special forces destroyed or seriously damaged the aircraft on the ground. Satellite imagery appears to confirm blast marks where the bombers were parked.
-This long-range strike, following the massive “Operation Spiderweb,” further demonstrates Ukraine’s growing capability to hold high-value Russian military assets at risk, prompting criticism from Russian military bloggers over their own military’s ineptitude.
Ukraine Strikes Again: Drones Destroy Russian Su-34 Bombers Deep Inside Russia
On June 27, Ukrainian drones struck four Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber aircraft based at the Marinovka aerodrome located in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast.
According to Ukraine’s General Staff the operation was another in a series of deep strikes that have been planned and carried out in order to disrupt the situation in Russia’s rear areas.
The most high-profile of these attacks was June’s Operation Spiderweb. This massive drone operation simultaneously destroyed or damaged a large number of Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) bomber aircraft on several bases.
The June 27 operation was a joint effort that is being credited to the Ukrainian Armed Force (ZSU) Special Operations Directorate (SOE) and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who carried out the operation in cooperation with other military units, again according to the same General Staff sources.
The Volgograd Oblast is located roughly 900 kilometers (560 miles) southeast of Moscow. This raid is another example of just how deep into Russian territory Kyiv is able to carry out drone attacks.
According to preliminary data, two Su-34 aircraft were destroyed in this attack, and two others were seriously damaged.
Later reports claim that actually three aircraft were destroyed in the attack.
The Su-34s are one of the aircraft that the VKS frequently employs to bomb Ukrainian civilian targets with guided aerial bombs, the Ukrainian General Staff said to media outlets in Kyiv. The Su-34s have been most commonly used to drop the Russian KAB-250 or KAB-400 (KAB is an acronym for precision-guided aviation bombs) munitions.
Other reports from the attack claim that the drone strikes caused a fire in the aerodrome’s technical and operational sections. This is a facility, according to a briefer from the Ukrainian General Staff, where combat aircraft are serviced and repaired.
Depending on the extent of the damage, this could conceivably make it difficult – or even impossible – for any remaining undamaged aircraft to continue operations.
If they are deprived of the requisite support equipment resident in the repair section, they could be grounded indefinitely.
Su-34 Attack: Escalation of the Drone Wars
Russia continues to intensify its aerial attacks on Ukraine, with the resulting increase in the civilian death toll.
Ukraine’s response has largely been focused on increasing drone attacks on Russian military targets.
The recent uptick in Ukraine drone attacks has been to supplement the strikes on military targets by using drones to shut down Russian airport operations, saturate Moscow’s air defenses, and cause the Russian population to feel as though they are under siege.
The latter effect was seen more recently in a Ukrainian strike on 1 July on the Russian city of Izhevsk, a city more than 600 miles from the Ukrainian border.
The drones were targeted explicitly on the Kupol Electromechanical Plant, a defense industrial site that produces the Russian military’s 9K330 Tor (SA-15) surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and the radar stations that guide those missiles. The same facility also manufactures the Osa (SA-8) air defence systems and has also developed drones, according to Ukrainian media.
Ukrainian news outlets made a specific point of highlighting that the Su-34s were struck using long-range Ukrainian drones. This was purposely done to emphasize that this strike was another operation planned well in advance by the Ukrainians and which went undetected by Russian counterintelligence.
Destruction on the Ground
Striking the aircraft while they were still on the ground – just like with Operation Spiderweb – “is Kyiv sending another signal that they can hit targets in Russia anywhere they want,” said a retired NATO-nation intelligence officer.
“The other point the Ukrainians meant to signal was by running an operation in which the enemy aircraft were hit while still on the ground. By hitting them before they had a chance to take off the Ukrainians again are telling the Russians that they – and their aircraft – are not safe anywhere.”
The Open-Source (OSINT) website CyberBoroshno has since released satellite imagery showing the extent of the damage to the aircraft that were hit.
The initial images that were taken by a Sentinel-1 satellite show the aircraft present at the aerodrome just two days before the SBU and Ukraine SOE forces conducted the drone strikes on Marinovka.
The next set of images taken on 29 June reveal blast marks at the site where one of the bombers had been parked. The blast field is assumed to have been created by the detonation of the munitions mounted on the Su-34’s weapons pylons once the aircraft caught fire.
As with other attacks on Moscow’s military sites, one of the results has been a wave of derisive comments from the Russian defense blogger community.
Their overall sentiment is to ask how Moscow’s military planners continue to be so inept.
The blogger and pilot Ilya Fighterbomber Tumanov commented that these were “multi-billion-ruble losses that could and should have been avoided,” and also stated, “there’s no point in commenting on Marinovka at all.”
About the Author
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs and Director of the Asian Research Centre with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
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